Page 37 of Pack Scratch Fever
“Are you sure you don’t mind staying past closing?” Piper asks softly as she and Blair tidy up the front area. “You can always come back another time. I don’t want to keep you longer than you need to be.”
Blair shoots me a look and rolls her eyes, pointing at Piper.
I smile. Apparently, Blair and I are on the same page, and she knows exactly how I feel about her best friend.
“I’m happy to stay as long as you want me,” I clarify, and Piper’s face flushes. Her scent blooms, fresh mint and lemon making my mouth water.
“I would like that,” she says. “We could do little cat photo sessions?”
“Absolutely,” I nod. “I even have backdrops in my car we could use.”
The corners of her eyes crinkle, and she scrunches her nose. “Yes! Could you grab those, and I’ll start setting up the cat room?”
“I would love to.”
After I retrieve the rest of the items needed, Blair says her goodbyes and locks the door behind us.
But as excited as I am to be alone with her, I can’t help but think of the incident earlier.
“I know that guy was bothering you. Are you sure you don’t mind being alone with—” I start to say, and Piper shakes her head and smirks.
“I have a good feeling about you, Avery,” she interrupts. “If I didn’t want to do this with you, I would say so. I’m comfortable with you.”
A warm, solid weight settles in my chest. “I have a good feeling about you, too,” I say softly.
Her grin makes my heart skip a beat.
“Let’s do this,” I continue. “Let’s start with the easiest cats to work with.”
“I think we found him,” Piper says fondly, and a content Alvin comes up to me and rubs his sides against my legs. “He’s a ham; he’ll eat up all the attention you give him.”
We lead him into the cat playroom, and both of us end up on the floor, Piper watching as I snap photos from different angles of all the cats in action.
“So, why photography?” she asks. “What made you get into it?”
I sit back against the wall, shuffling closer to her so we can look through some of the photos on the camera’s screen. Our shoulders touch, and I greedily inhale her scent. “My mom had an old camera, the kind with film you develop, not digital. I just started snapping pictures of everything one day—my sisters, the sky, random things I found on the ground. Then, when we got them developed, and I saw the results, I became obsessed. It’s been—” I pause, doing the math in my head. “Shit, I’ve been taking pictures for more than twenty years.”
Piper makes a pleased hum when I stop on a picture of Alvin pouncing midair. “Ah, so you’re an old man, then.”
“Do you consider thirty-seven old?” I tease, and she meets my eyes with a smirk.
“Ancient,” she deadpans.
I nudge her shoulder playfully, looking for any reason to touch her. “Not all of us can be young and beautiful like you.”
At my compliment, she averts her gaze and bites the inside of her cheek. “You mentioned the other night that you teach, too?” she asks.
I don’t call her out for changing the subject. “At LCC. Luna Community College,” I reply. “I’ve been there for seven years.”
“And you like it?”
I zoom in on a photo of a tuxedo kitten that’s batting a toy fish. “I do,” I say earnestly. “I’m lucky to teach something I’m passionate about. Of course, sometimes you get the students who are there because they just need to take an elective and don’t really care about photography, but I’m still helping them create art.”
It’s why I feel so terrible for Poe.
He spends so much of his life devoted to something that makes him miserable.
So miserable that he doesn’t even see what’s right in front of him.
